Alfred Adler

The oldest of human striving is to be at one with our fellow human beings

Thomas Merton

A life is either all spiritual or not spiritual at all. No man can serve two masters. Your life is shaped by the end you live for. You are made in the image of what you desire.

Talmud

There are stars who's light only reaches the earth long after they have fallen apart. There are people who's remembrance gives light in this world, long after they have passed away. This light shines in our darkest nights on the road we must follow.

God's Fool

While you are proclaiming peace with your lips, be careful to have it even more fully in your heart.

Death Penalty

Mother Teresa

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

Gifts

God created all things...elastic waistbandsare my favorite!

Cluster Map

This Journey

We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Pierre Teilhard De Chardin

Counter

Mohandas Gandhi

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

If you have men who will exclude any of God's creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.

St. Francis of Assisi

Love is...

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres...

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13

Thomas Merton

The whole idea of compassion is based on a keen awareness of the interdependence of all these living beings, which are all part of one another, and all involved in one another.

Jalal ad-Din Rumi

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Albert Einstein

There are only twoways to Live your Life.One is as thoughnothing is a Miracle.The other is as ifEverything is a Miracle.

Love IS the Rule

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "

And a second is like it, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets." (Matthew 22:37-40)

“We are not called upon to do all the good possible but only that which we can do”

Mother Theodore Guerin

"You don't have to be extraordinary, just forgiving." Mattafix

Loving Commitment

We can disagree on the death penalty, we can disagree on homosexuality, we can disagree on the status of women and still bind our hearts together in a common, united, generous, friendly, loving commitment

Jimmy Carter

"If you are a theologian, you pray truly; and if you pray truly, you are a theologian"

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any "how.'”

Viktor Frankl

We Have Been Called...

We have been called to heal the wounds,

to unite what part has fallen apart,

and to bring home those who have lost their way.

St. Fancis of Assisi

Dalai Lama

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

Charter for Compassion

Interdependency

We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately."

Elie Wiesel

Family

A family is a place where minds come in contact with one another.

If the minds love one another

The home will be as a beautiful as a flower garden.

But if these minds get out of harmony with each other

It is like a storm which plays havoc

With the garden.

The Buddha

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Goodbye and Thank You Phoebe Snow

So with the death of Phoebe Snow we have lost not only a great voice but a great person. Here was a soulful voice, a woman of courage who had finally made it. With the release of “Poetry Man” she was on her way and then her life changed. Everyone‘s life changes but she made decisions that would have consequences for the remainder of her life. She was 24 and making some monumental decisions.

Phoebe Snow: Poetry Man

Phoebe became pregnant. When her daughter, Valerie Rose was born the baby suffered extreme brain damage. Phoebe was advised to have the child institutionalized and told the baby would only live three years. Phoebe would have none of it. She took her baby home and tended to her musical career as best she could.

That meant Phoebe toured when she could. It meant she took her magnificent voice and did background music for commercials. That meant she became a single mom of a special needs child and she did not regret it.

It is easy to talk about the dignity of all life, Phoebe actually lived those values. She actually would not have thought of it as a difficult thing to do. As she often stated, she was simply in love with her daughter. Her daughter had limited hearing, she was legally blind, and she could not talk. However, her daughter was able to use her body to communicate her wants, needs and feelings. Observers described Phoebe and Valerie Rose as having a very special relationship.

So Phoebe sang and toured the world. She made an appearance with a singer named Linda Ronstadt and they became fast friends. And Phoebe worked at her music. One day she noticed that her daughter liked opera so Phoebe began to sing opera. That may have been what kept her voice so pure over the decades.

Linda Ronstadt, Phoebe Snow - It's In His Kiss 5-19-1979

Valeria Rose was only supposed to live three years. She lived to be 31. When she died she left a hole in Phoebe’s life. It was Linda Ronstadt who got Phoebe back out singing and back into life. Phoebe would dedicate each concert to her daughter but it was an act of thanksgiving and not an act of mourning. She knew how blessed she had been to have her time with her daughter.

People Get Ready

Then at age 61 Phoebe left us. We were blessed to have Phoebe Snow in our lives. It is not simply her voice and her music that touches us. Lots of musicians can do that. It was the simple act of loving courageously and loving without end that demands our attention and our thanks. Good bye Phoebe and thank you for an art and a life so rare.